Focusing on current affairs and public relations, the Uncaged PR blog will look at my views on the world through the eyes of a PR student.

12/06/2010

Who's behind the Facebook cartoon character campaign?

This is extraordinary. Within a week of first seeing this campaign go viral on Facebook, around a third of my online friends now have a profile picture of a cartoon character from the past. I myself have been tempted to change my profile picture to my look-alike Snufkin from the Moomins.

But who has created this campaign?

The original message that Facebook's users were publishing as a status update reads: ‘Change your FB picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal is not to see a human face on FB until Monday (Dec 6th) Join the fight against child abuse & copy and paste to your status!'

It was thought that the NSPCC were behind the campaign until a statement published on their Twitter page denied any involvement: ‘Although the NSPCC did not originate the childhood cartoon Facebook campaign, we welcome the attention it has brought to the work we do.’

Within the last 24 hours new viral status updates have circulated Facebook stating that the campaign could be used as a smokescreen for paedophiles to easily target children online. This must have alarm bells ringing at the NSPCC press office, or would it?

It appears the NSPCC has already received large amounts of exposure through a campaign they did not even create. The statement published on Twitter is evidence to suggest they are happy with the coverage via Facebook alone and I'm sure this story will be picked up by many national and regional media outlets.

Regardless of who created the campaign should it be for a best of intentions, or heaven forbid anything sinister, this is proof that viral campaigns should you have a clever idea, can go way beyond anyone’s expectations.

For more information on the work carried out by the NSPCC, please visit www.nspcc.org.uk

It's funny you comment today of all days. I was in a meeting earlier and mentioned your Spotify idea about creating your ideal playlist. Looking at using something very similar for a campaign I'm working on called Challenge 66. I thank you for your idea, and I'm stealing it! haha